Giovanni PIAZZA
Giovanni (Gianni) Piazza is Associate Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Catania since 1 October 2014, after having been Assistant Professor of Political Science from 1 October 2005 to 30 September 2014. Graduated (BA) on 1987 with a dissertation thesis on “Collective Movements and Italian Political System: the case of Autonomia Operaia”, he received on 1995 a Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Florence, with a thesis on “Illicit in political practice”. From 1999 to 2005 he was research fellow (assegnista di ricerca) in Political Science at the University of Catania. Since 2007 he is the Coordinator (with D. Della Porta) of the SISP (Società Italiana di Scienza Politica) Standing group on “Social Movements and Political Partcipation”. Since 2008 he is the Associate Editor of the scientific journal “Partecipazione e Conflitto The Open Journal of Sociopolitical Studies”. Since 2009 he is part of the Doctorate in Political Sciences at the University of Catania and member of the SQEK (Squatting Europe Kollective) transnational researcher-activists group. From 2012 he is member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the scientific journal “Contention. The Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Protest”. He obtained the National Scientific Qualifications as: Associate Professor in the sector 14/C1 – “General and Political Sociology, Sociology of Law” on December 2013, and in the sector 14/A2 – “Political Science” on February 2014; Professor in the sector 14/A2 - "Political Science" on April 2017.
After conducting research in the 1990s on local government and politics, public policy analysis, and political elites, since the beginning of the new millennium he has returned to work on social movements and new and unconventional forms of political participation in Europe in the GRACE research group, coordinated by Donatella della Porta. He has participated in numerous national and European research projects related to citizens' committees, social forums, deliberative democracy, and local movements such as the No Tav and No Ponte protests. Recently, he has focused on student and researcher movements, squat and social center occupations, local and environmental movements and conflicts, particularly the No Muos movement, migrant protests in Sicily and pro Palestine mobilizations